Old friends Harry, Ron and Hermione have grown up in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. And so have Harry Potter's early readers.
As soon as Harry's latest book - actually a script book - released in Ranchi's Crossword Book Store on Circular Road on Sunday, Neha Gupta, a lecturer in her late 20s who had started reading about the boy wizard when she was still in school, was the first to pick up a copy.
Her enthusiasm is mirrored by the global euphoria over Cursed Child. In the West, the media is already calling Cursed Child, which pays tribute to Potter nostalgia as much as it takes the story of Harry's son Albus forward, the publishing sensation of the decade. Readers are confessing to have fallen in love with Harry's son Albus and surprise, Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius.
Rowling, who shares credits for the script book with writers John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, chose July 31, Sunday, for the global release, as it is both her birthday and that of her boy wizard Harry who changed her life into a living miracle.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out in 1997, introducing a shy orphan to the world. What saved Harry Potter from becoming another Oliver Twist was his wizardry and his extraordinary destiny in the form of a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, which the next books, right up to the last one, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007, kept unravelling.
The epilogue of the 2007 book left no room for a sequel, but as it happens often, readers kept hoping to run into their long-time friends Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and many more. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child fulfils this dream.
"I grabbed my book and left the store to immediately curl up and start reading," Ranchi Pottermaniac Neha told The Telegraph on Sunday.
For once, Ranchi was luckier than Jamshedpur, as the Cursed Child is likely to reach Jamshedpur on Monday.
"I've finished an earlier Harry book in six hours. Let's see if I can beat that," Neha added, happy she had booked her copy in advance. "I was a young girl when I read Harry's first book and remember crying at his life with the Dursleys (his Muggle relatives who dislike him) and being happy for him when he goes to Hogwarts (his school)," she said.
So, how is Neha liking the grown-up Harry as a parent and auror in the ministry of magic? "No spoilers," she grinned.
New readers were also seen crowding for their copy. "I saw the Potter films and grew a liking for them," said Shivam Raj, a first-year student of St Xavier's College. "I haven't read any Harry Potter before but will read this one. I am a science student and I think magic has a lot to do with science," came his friend Harsh Sinha's somewhat surprising reply.
"We had 33 pre-bookings for the book priced at Rs 899," said Crossword store manager Anand Shrivastava. "We gave 15 per cent discounts."
Jamshedpur, meanwhile, is all excited. Bookstore Wasawa Singh's in Kamani Center, Bistupur, ordered about 250 copies in the first lot. "I think we'll hit a ton (over 100 copies) on Day One," owner Mukhtyar Singh said. "We will offer a 20 per cent discount."
Many steel city buyers have, however, already ordered it online, where prices are lower. "I ordered it on Flipkart at Rs 580 and will get my copy in the next three days," said Trishali Mehta, a political science student of Jamshedpur Women's College.
Will you buy the new Harry Potter script book? Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com
